I can’t even believe how adorable and simply beautiful the tasseled huppah came out! The ultimate DIY gift from friends of the groom…and such a great idea to boot!

Andrea and Josh wanted their wedding to be a shared event where the bride and groom were as much the focus as their family and friends, all joining together in celebration of their marriage. To do this, they asked their guests to participate in a variety of ways throughout the wedding, making it a perfectly homespun and crafty Brooklyn affair.

In preparation, family members helped make the luminaries and the signing quilt, while the groom’s architect friends designed and built a huppah (a Jewish wedding ceremony canopy), topped with over 100 handmade strung paper tassels.

When the day of the wedding arrived it was a perfectly autumn afternoon: 65-degrees and sunny with leaves taking hues of deep green, yellow and fiery red. The ceremony was outdoors on Prospect Park’s Long Meadow starting at 1pm, and was introduced by the bride’s two friends as the fluitist and officiant. With the park’s lawns and trees as their backdrop, Andrea and Josh read each other vows as the huppah’s tassels swayed in the breeze. Sharing the park with their guests was important to Andrea and Josh since they spent much of their time there, relaxing on the weekends and running and biking before work. So having a kids soccer game going on next to the ceremony was a perfect complement, if not an adorable forecast of Andrea & Josh’s possible future: someday brining their own children to the park.

After the ceremony guests were invited to a reception held in the Picnic House, a lodge with large windows overlooking the Long Meadow. Guests were treated to a variety of homemade beers crafted by the bride’s father and a series of passed hors d’oeuvres, starting with savory and ending with sweet. Dessert was highlighted by homemade pies made by the bride’s family. The afternoon was filled with laughs, conversation and dancing while a slideshow featuring family photos of the bride and groom as kids played in the corner, and a jazz trio led by the groom’s step-brother carried guests through the afternoon. At sunset, Andrea and Josh were whisked away by a pedi-cab, driven from the park and through Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza as passers-by wished them congratulations, sending them into the night.

So here’s a fun take on a photoshoot…a collaboration between Brookelyn Photography and You + me* is always interesting..it starts off with an inspiration board and a cryptic set of directions, and goes from there!

for your photoshoot, we would like to capture the essence of your life as a couple in New York. Our concept for your shoot is “refined paparazzi”–we’re not going to go chasing you down the street or anything, but for the first part of the shoot, we’d like to capture images of you without you posing at all. To get the spontaneity we’re looking for, we’ll send you a box with some provisions for the shoot, and with a note telling you where to meet us. When you get to said place, you’ll text us letting us know you’re there, and then set off to explore the place together for about a half hour. We’ll be behind the scenes taking pictures of you as if you’re just going about your day. After we’ve gotten some truly un-posed images, we’ll meet up with you, and get some posed photos that still have an essence of spontaneity.